ren hoek

Meant to say thanks for telling me about palomas a while back. I’ve been drinking them for years now. I make them with Jarrito’s grapefruit flavor, just perfect.

Faceberg

Because the US population was living in a sea of propaganda at the time. Everyone from the State Dept. to the executive branch to Senator Biden was making the case for war, and the news cycle just uncritically repeated what they said. People didn't just organically arrive at this conclusion. In retrospect I really admire the people who had the courage to stand against the tide while everyone else fell in line.

Powell was uniquely positioned as a universally respected figure in the Bush admin. He could have probably blown the whole thing up during his testimony at the UN, or at the very least resigned in protest. There just wasn’t much pushback at all from people in power at the time- everyone just sort of went along with it.

You could say that for just about anyone in politics. Anyway I follow a bunch of leftists on twitter and they all seem to agree Lightfoot is astoundingly corrupt and like a third term of Rahm Emanuel.

Yes, it's horrible. But I wouldn't call Lightfoot a leftist. She's a standard machine politician in Chicago.

Threatening to take someone's pension away- people who grinded out decades for it and could simply walk away in retirement like any other unvaccinated civilian- seems crazy to me. I got the vaccine myself in the summer, but I really don't like where this is going at all. Part of the problem that doesn't seem to get talked about a lot is the fact people have lost trust in medical institutions. Healthcare is a racket in this country, everybody knows it. These pharmaceutical corporations are making a killing. The Biden admin, for its part, still won't release IP waivers so that countries like Venezuela can manufacture the vaccine cheaply. What kind of message does that send? It makes it look like their incentive is profits, not public health. Here we are in the middle of a pandemic, what kind of effort have these institutions made to regain people's trust? None. Instead, we just act like "anti-vaxxers" are crazy or stupid, and push to censor them on public forums. Add in the fact that the way people engage in debate about the vaccine is soooo obnoxious. Nobody ever had their mind changed by a smug liberal acting like they're crazy or stupid. Then there's Trump-centric people posting memes correlating the vaccine stuff to Jews being forced to wear the Star of David. The whole vaccine debate is just an insufferable culture war anymore, I understand why people have checked out completely. I really think if the vaccine came out before the 2020 election- when COVID was hugely politicized in both directions, which is also part of the problem- we might have just seen the shoe on the other foot regarding who the 'anti-vaxxers' were.

Good writeup on an ongoing dispute between Lori Lightfoot and Chicago police: https://doomberg.substack.com/p/chicago-standoff The reality of the Friday deadline came and went, and the weekend saw continued escalation. On Sunday evening, just as a union meeting was adjourning, the city issued a memo warning officers that they now face disciplinary action (emphasis added): “A Department member, civilian or sworn, who disobeys a direct order by a supervisor to comply with the City of Chicago's Vaccination Police issued 8 October 2021 will become the subject of a disciplinary investigation that could result in a penalty up to and including separation from the Chicago Police Department. Furthermore, sworn members who retire while under disciplinary investigations may be denied retirement credentials.” The threat to revoke the pensions of officers – earned over decades – who decide to retire in lieu of submitting to the mandate is a significant escalation, one that is sure to trigger a nuclear response from the union. According to Catanzara, some 40% of the current police force are eligible to simply walk away from the job with full pension. Predictably, the union posted a fiery response to their Facebook page, calling the mayor a tyrant...

I don't like the idea of criticizing someone after death. But the way these public figures are completely whitewashed and valorized as heroes after death is disturbing. Younger generations watching the news would probably have no idea that Powell used his stature to sell the Bush administration's lies on Iraq, a war that killed a million people and caused untold suffering. It changed the world forever, for the worse. He almost certainly could have ended the whole thing himself but chose to lie instead. Like I say, it's not fun going there, but the way news media bathes these people in praise makes it seem necessary to be at least somewhat critical about their record. Political figures that make hugely consequential decisions that ruined millions of people's lives need to have it reflected in their legacy, otherwise it will happen again and again.

It was nice seeing Shatner happy and everything, and concurrently weird seeing Bezos try to act like a normal human, but a moment that could unite the country together again? What? Tim, I think these pleas for unity are kind of tonedeaf given the material conditions people have to live with anymore. Of course they want to blame something for the loss in their quality of life. This isn't going to get any better while our politicians are routinely screwing us behind closed doors.

That's the larger point. The 'attacks on democracy' from the state itself are bipartisan & far more grave than anything that happened on Jan. 6th. It's really not even close.

“The Assange case once again demonstrates that when erroneous reporting falls on the right side of the US and UK foreign policy establishment, editorial standards are set aside, and journalistic failures are met with zero accountability. As such, it’s important to remember those journalists who watched on, pointing, laughing, comfortable in the knowledge that their work would never produce the impact nor risk of WikiLeaks—and then said nothing as the right to a free press was removed in broad daylight.”

“In the end, it finally dawned on me that I had been blinded by propaganda, and that Assange had been systematically slandered to divert attention from the crimes he exposed. Once he had been dehumanized through isolation, ridicule and shame, just like the witches we used to burn at the stake, it was easy to deprive him of his most fundamental rights without provoking public outrage worldwide.” - Nils Melzer, UN Torture Rapporteur Deathly Silence: Journalists Who Mocked Assange Have Nothing to Say About CIA Plans to Kill Him

The Patriot Act and wars that followed were far more damaging to democratic govt than a bunch of maga goofballs entering a building. You could probably make a good case for Citizens United legalizing political bribery too. I can’t believe people are still on about this.

The CIA plotted to kidnap or assassinate Julian Assange. Really dark stuff. Somehow this complete farce & political persecution continues. Yahoo News: Kidnapping, assassination and a London shoot-out: Inside the CIA's secret war plans against WikiLeaks